


A Bug in a Rug

by Daisiestdaisy (Doyle)



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Fluff, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 03:57:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14072391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doyle/pseuds/Daisiestdaisy
Summary: He’d promised the kid ice cream, and a promise was a promise. 4x15 missing scene.





	A Bug in a Rug

**Author's Note:**

> I figure everyone's going to have written a version of the 4x15 "the Riddler takes Martin for ice cream" scene before long, so here's mine.

An ice cream parlor was, unfortunately, out of the question. Sofia Falcone (as Oswald had impressed on him at tedious length) had spies all over the city, and now that word of Martin’s incredible rescue at the hands of a dashing and mysterious figure was doubtlessly out, they’d all be at panic stations.

Also, and more importantly, during his brief tenure in City Hall Ed had seen both the salaries of the food safety inspectors and the kind of cars they drove, and the discrepancy there had soured him on eating out in Gotham ever since.

But, he’d promised the kid ice cream, and a promise was a promise, and the grocery store kind could be eaten in the safe house _and_ was packaged out of state, so was almost guaranteed to have come from a cow. Ed grabbed mint chip for himself, and went for chocolate and strawberry for Martin, who hadn’t answered when asked what he wanted. He was feeling generous, enough that he might even quell his disgust at the thought of mixing different flavors and let him eat them together if he wanted to. The little guy’d had a rough couple of weeks.

The Riddler called Arkham from a payphone on the street, and had to use up all his quarters repeating his riddle until the dullard on the other end had it word-perfect. Oswald had been frantic about the child’s safety. It’d never do for the message to get garbled in translation. It made him a little later than he’d intended, but that gave the ice cream time to soften, and Martin was fine – Ed had left him with the TV remote and his spare gun.

He hadn’t explicitly told him _not_ to drag all of the living room furniture into a barricade and huddle behind it with all of the sharp knives and matches he’d been able to find, so that was on him. Still, once Ed pulled some of the cushions off the couch and dumped them on the ground it made a comfy spot to eat.

Martin looked at the ice cream like it might bite him. Ed found them each a bowl from the kitchen, in case it was the thought of eating from a carton was bothering him, and scooped a pile of green deliciousness into his own.

“You can call me the Riddler, by the way,” he said, maybe a bit belatedly, five hours and one death-defying escape after they’d met. “I know your name’s Martin. Oswald’s told me all about you.” Or, all that he knew, which didn’t include minor details like an age, a last name, or any kind of history before popping out of the ground at Sofia Falcone’s phony orphanage. Supposedly he could handle himself in a close-quarters knife-fight, though, which was less than reassuring when the boy was staring at him with a fistful of steak-knives clutched to his chest. “You’d have an easier time eating if you put those down.”

Martin narrowed his eyes, but he’d been casting longing looks the whole time at the two cartons still in the bag, and while Ed made a show of being engrossed in his own bowl, he slowly put the knives down on the carpet. Ed expected him to grab a spoon and dig in, but he unlooped the notepad and pencil from around his neck instead.

 _Oswald told me about you too,_ he held up.

“Sometimes my fame precedes me,” the Riddler said, pleased.

Martin tore out that page. His pencil flew across the paper. This one, when he showed it to Ed was a sketch: a stick figure, with glasses and a rounded bowler hat on its head, surrounded by a shape that was all jagged points and edges.

Ed looked it over with the critical eye of someone who’d stolen a lot of very beautiful and very valuable art. “Well, this could be anyone. You don’t have any grasp of perspective, and you can barely tell this outline around me is meant to be a block of ice.”

The kid made a tiny _tch_ noise, but finally went for a spoon and the carton of chocolate.

Ed considered regaling him with the story of how he orchestrated his rescue, but something stopped him; Oswald had been the driving force behind this mission, and it only seemed fair he heard about it first.

Switching his spoon to his left hand, Martin wrote with his right: _Why?_

“Why did Oswald freeze me?”

A nod.

“Long story. And I don’t know how much of it you’d understand. Have you ever had a girlfriend?”

The kid blinked at him and then shook his head, setting down his spoon and holding up his hands, one thumb folded across his palm.

Ed scoffed. “Oh, you’ve had nine girlfriends, really? Excuse me if I don’t believe you, you’re like six years old.”

 _I am 9_ , Martin wrote down. _I don’t have a girlfriend._ Then, for some reason, he drew an arrow looping the second sentence back up to the first, and underlined it.

“Fine,” Ed sighed. All of the frames of reference were different with children, especially when the only thing he knew about this one was that he was really starting to power through that ice-cream carton. “Let’s say you had a best friend.”

Martin nodded, as if he could imagine that, but Ed pressed the point: “Not just the friend you spend the most time with so he gets to be called the best one by default. A _real_ best friend, like in books or movies. Somebody who you feel closer to than anybody in the world. Somebody who sees you the way you really are deep down on the inside.”

He looked confused. As he should. Nine-year-old Ed would have been much _much_ smarter, and he hadn’t understood any of this. When he used to fantasize having a friend who’d protect him and stand by him, he hadn’t been picturing anyone even close to Oswald.

“And let’s say your friend didn’t like that you wanted... that ice cream.”

Martin stuck another spoonful in his mouth and pointed to the ‘ _Why?_ ’ paper.

Ed could feel this metaphor overstretching already. “Maybe he’d just prefer it if you chose his... favorite flavor of ice cream. Instead.”

_Why?_

“I... actually don’t know. I’ve never understood that part. I guess maybe he thinks you’ll... that it’ll make him happy. But that doesn’t matter, because you know what _you_ want.”

Martin pointed to his carton.

“Right.”

Martin leaned his head to one side, and then gestured between Ed, and himself, the two ice-cream cartons and then his own cartoon of the iceberg in a way that Ed was impressed to find he understood as _That doesn’t make sense, because if we both like different kinds better then we get to have more, and I still don’t get why you ended up frozen._

“Well, maybe nobody would have _had_ to get frozen,” he snapped, “or killed, or shot, if he’d just _asked_ what I wanted.”

After a moment, hesitantly and with a confused line between his eyes, Martin held out the chocolate carton to him.

“Thank you, I’m fine,” Ed said. “But you’re very polite. I can see why Oswald wants to save you so badly.”

Martin reached for his paper, writing in small letters this time. _He already saved me. He yelled at me and said he’d send me back but after that he saved me._

“He does that. The yelling part, anyway. Trust me, he’s paid for it.”

_I didn’t need him to. I knew he was sorry._

What did a little kid know about the delicate balance of hurt and revenge, attacks and counter-attacks, about striking at your enemy’s weakness before they could get to yours? It must be so simple, Ed thought, to be a child and not know anything and to just... decide someone who’d wronged you was sorry, and that that made it all right.

At the bottom of his page, Martin added, _I’m sorry too_.

Ed put his spoon into the empty bowl and set both down on the couch cushion. “I should go get him out of Arkham,” he said. “You can tell him you’re sorry too.” He would cry, Ed would bet his life on it, so it counted as one last piece of revenge. “Ah – perfect timing.” He’d heard a noise in the hall, and Martin snatched up one of his knives as a key turned in the lock. “It’s okay,” Ed told him quickly. “He’s nice. He’s a friend. He’s going to be taking care of you while I break out Oswald and we kill Sofia. We’ll be back before you know it.”

The door opened. Martin hunkered down behind the overturned couch. Ed risked patting him quickly on the top of the head and then sprung to his feet, beaming his most winning smile. “Foxy! You like strawberry, right?”


End file.
